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Civil rights icon U.S. Rep. John Lewis pushes voting reforms, with help from Massachusetts congressmen

March on Washington_Scho.jpg

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., arrives to speak at a rally to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday in Washington. Tens of thousands of people marched to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and down the National Mall on Saturday, to commemorate King's famous ""I Have a Dream" speech, made Aug. 28, 1963, during the March on Washington, and pledging that his dream includes equality for gays, Latinos, the poor and the disabled.
(Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)

Fifty years after the March on Washington, civil rights leader U.S. Rep. John Lewis is pushing for additional voting reforms, with support from several Massachusetts congressmen.

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the march, which led to the passage of legislation granting black people civil and voting rights. Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, was a leader in the civil rights movement.

Lewis introduced the Voter Empowerment Act 2013 in January, which includes numerous reforms aimed at making voting easier. The bill has gotten at least 174 co-sponsors. The bill comes with a price tag – it would appropriate at least $1.1 billion for states to comply with the law. It does not have Republican support, so it is unlikely to pass the Republican-lead House of Representatives. But it provides insight into the positions of those Democrats who have signed on.

Lewis first introduced the bill in 2012 after voters in some states reported long delays at the polls. The bill was a response to new laws in several states that created stricter voting requirements meant to avoid voter fraud, such as requiring photo identification or tightening registration requirements.

U.S. Rep. James McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he signed onto the bill because it “addresses several key areas of our electoral process to increase access, integrity, and accountability.”

“John Lewis is a hero of mine, and I’m honored to call him a friend,” McGovern said. “As he said in Washington this week, he did not spill blood on that bridge only to see the Supreme Court undercut voting rights in this country. In recent elections we have seen thousands of people turned away from the polls - something that is unacceptable in the United States.”

The Supreme Court this summer struck down a provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which required that nine states with a history of discrimination get permission from the federal government to change their voting laws.

Lewis’s bill would require states to offer online voter registration. It would mandate that states have same-day voter registration and would require states to use paper ballots. It would allow anyone with a disability to vote absentee. It would prohibit the use of “voter caging,” purging voter rolls by sending direct mail and eliminating anyone whose mail is returned undeliverable. It would enhance the penalty for deceptive practices and create a national voter hotline for voters to report problems. It would prohibit states from denying voting rights to ex-felons who are no longer incarcerated, something now up to the states. It would also require states to allow 16 and 17 year olds to preregister.

A number of these provisions would result in rule changes in Massachusetts. For example, Massachusetts does not currently have online voter registration or same-day voter registration.

Of Massachusetts’ eight Congressmen, all Democrats, co-sponsors of Lewis’s bill include McGovern, Niki Tsongas, Joseph Kennedy, John Tierney, Stephen Lynch and William Keating.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Richard Neal of Springfield said although Neal did not appear on the list of sponsors, Neal recently signed onto the bill. A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano did not respond to a request for comment.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren signed onto the Senate version of the bill. U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Democrat who was elected to the Senate after representing the 5th District in the U.S. House, did not sign onto the House or Senate bill. A Markey spokesman said Markey will sign on when he returns to the Senate after the August recess.

State Sen. Barry Finegold, an Andover Democrat who chairs the legislature’s Joint Committee on Election Laws, has submitted a similar bill at the state level, which would implement some of these reforms in Massachusetts, including online voter registration, pre-registration for 16 and 17 year olds, audits of election results and early voting – though not same-day registration.

“Most of the stuff, we’re pushing for in the state already,” Finegold said. “I think voting is one of the best things that we have going here in the United States and in Massachusetts…We should do everything in our power to make sure that we have the most fair and most responsible elections.”

Nancy Blackmer, president of the Massachusetts Town Clerks’ Association, said the clerks, who would implement any reforms, are waiting to see details of the legislation before taking a position.

Neal said in a statement that Lewis has been one of his closest friends in Congress for more than two decades. “I have visited Selma, Alabama with him to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge and to walk in the footsteps of those courageous civil rights leaders who fought for the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965,” Neal said. “It is an honor to serve with an American icon who truly changed the course of history in our country. As we recognize the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, I am pleased to be a co-sponsor of a bill that reinforces the spirit and purpose of that landmark legislation signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson.”

Lynch said in a statement that he was proud to join Lewis and the other Democrats. “The right to vote is not only one of our most fundamental rights as United States citizens but it is also a right from which other basic rights flow,” Lynch said. “Rep. John Lewis’s Voter Empowerment Act seeks to protect this right by improving access and accountability in our electoral process.”

Pam Wilmot, executive director of the open government group Common Cause Massachusetts, called the federal bill a “reformer’s dream act.” Although Massachusetts, which is heavily Democratic, does not have the same partisan battles over election reform as exist in battleground states, she said the state “has not caught up to where a lot of the country is” when it comes to election reform, such as online voter registration.

Aron Goldman, executive director of The Springfield Institute, which monitors voting inequities in Western Massachusetts, said reforms proposed in the federal bill could increase minority turnout in areas such as Springfield and Holyoke, where he said people vote in white wards at around three times the rate as in minority wards. “Online registration and same day registration are all key things for making a big difference for voter turnout,” Goldman said.